Another example of Communuty Notes on X being useless:
"This is an AI generated video of Vice President Kamala Harris using audio of clips that were never actually stated by the VP,” read one suggested Community Note. “Videos like this are dangerous to those who can not decipher AI generated content from reality.”
X is now basically Gab. Another reason to organize here.
Tuning into a bit of the Olympics this morning, within two minutes the reality of accessibility in 2024 is on display. Audio description for a channel showing multiple sports is impressive but the …
Newswire: Tek Talk of 7/29/24 at 8pm Eastern welcomes a panel discussing the ACB convention and those displaying at the Exhibit Hall groups.io/g/tech-vi/message/74…
I honestly wish the audio games forum was shutting down instead of @AppleVis but on a more serious note, I'd love the site to be given to the community or archived in some way because this is blindness history and there is no other comparable repository of accessible apps for iOS. Can someone, anyone, talk to David and the team and preserve the apps databases, at least? Give the website to the community, don't just shut it down completely because there's a lot of community value. Shut down the forums, but at least keep the repositories and blog posts alive for as long as the domain and host will last. applevis.com/blog/end-era-mess… #Apple #Blind #Accessibility
Dear AppleVis Community, It is with deep sadness and a heavy heart that after careful consideration I have made the difficult decision to step down from my responsibilities with AppleVis.
Someone still has to pay for the hosting and bandwidth and maintain the system; security updates, etc. And even if someone else offered to do it, the AppleVis folks have to trust that they'll do a good job and not misrepresent anything or tarnish its historical reputation. Situations like this are super tricky. The reality of the situation is that because this was all voluntary, they owe the community nothing, nor should they.
Ideally, there might have been a succession plan from the beginning, both technical and management, but there wasn't. And again, since it was all voluntary, no one can expect that. It is what it is. Very sad though.
@jcsteh I totally see and understand what you're saying, but if they knew about this several months in advance, why didn't they start a search for someone who could potentially take it on? I'm sure there are many in this community who are trustworthy and want to see the site succeed, and have the necessary skills to make that happen. It doesn't make sense, and both the blog post and final decision seem rushed without much consideration.
@jcsteh Seconding Jamie. Situations like the AppleVis one are incredibly tricky, from just about every standpoint, but especially the community aspect.
@acarson @jcsteh Rather than second-guess the decision, I'd rather focus on what we can do. I've stated earlier that I'm willing to take over the main responsibility with the community's help. I'm certain that there will be many issues to consider. I'm Going to give this a bit of thought and organize something in a day or so.
@ppatel @acarson @jcsteh Agree… I did write to David asking him for the list of things that anyone wanting to take this on would have to consider. I somehow think website / Drupal administration is not going to be the hardest of them. :) Yes, there is web hosting and such, but in David’s blog entry it seemed like the concerns were beyond technical.
@acarson @vick21 @ppatel The handover itself is a lot of work. Maybe he just doesn't want to deal with that. Sometimes with community projects, you feel like you can never leave, because even if you pass it to someone else, you still end up answering questions, resolving issues, providing guidance, etc. I'm not saying this is necessarily the way I would choose to do things - as I said, ideally there would have been succession planning - but also understand how exhausting this kind of thing can be. It's entirely reasonable that someone would just be over it and want a clean out.
@jcsteh @acarson @ppatel Absolutely! There is no obligation on David’s part to begin with… :) I think I am amazed that Applevis has been able to exist for so long. An amazing community effort without a doubt.
@vick21 @jcsteh @acarson Absolutely. I don't disagree with any of this. My intention so far is to get as much information from David and the team as possible and deal with issues as they arise. If they're not willing to transition the site, then we should plan for something else without placing the burden on them.
@Cristobalm @jcsteh @jscholes I've moderated several discussion groups over the years and none of them were as big and numerous as the ones on AppleVis. Even moderating those small groups, one or two in particular, were quite a chore as I had to deal with a small subset of users who couldn't seem to follow simple guidelines. It was taking a toll on my mental health and I gave them up and never once looked back. In my case, I put the word out that I was looking for someone to take over and I had people who were willing to step up. With AppleVis, just moderating those forums would be quite a huge job and you'd need several moderators, possibly one or two for each forum.
Still on X? Without notice, X has opted all users into training its "Grok" AI Model. To turn off this setting and stop your "posts, interactions, inputs, and results" from being used for training and fine-tuning Grok, visit x.com/settings/grok_settings and uncheck the checkbox.
When Colin Baker was awarded the role of the Sixth Doctor, he decided that he wanted to stay in the TARDIS for as long as possible - maybe even beat Tom Baker's record.
New Rules for Evaluating Supernatural Phenomena (Apparitions, Visions, Eucharistic Miracles, Catholic, Vatican, Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith) – Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World jimmyakin.com/2024/07/new-rule…
Re, last boost: This actually makes me kind of sad. Applevis has been an amazing resource that I've recommended to my friends and consumers who want to broaden their knowledge on their apple devices, and find honest reviews about the useability of aps with voiceover. I wish all the best to the Applevis crew as they navigate these difficult times. I hope the site can soon return, as it is a great database for potential new Apple users.
For now, the most important thing to do is to support David Goodwin and the rest of the Applevis team for their dedication and attention to consumer use for visually impaired individuals. I respect his decision to focus on personal life matters and his own mental health. Thank you, Applevis for giving us many great years of discussion and learning from one another. Applevis was a community in every true sense of the word. Until it returns, it will be a digital home that many of us will miss. For those who may have my boost hidden or haven't seen it, here is the link to the blog post where David Goodwin announces the closure of Applevis. applevis.com/blog/end-era-mess…
Dear AppleVis Community, It is with deep sadness and a heavy heart that after careful consideration I have made the difficult decision to step down from my responsibilities with AppleVis.
While sad news, this team has run themselves ragged maintaining the site. We all need time to shift gears and re-evaluate things. All the best to the team and their future! I shall miss the wonderful blogs after each WWDC and other Apple event. Onward and upward! The End of an Era: A Message From the Founder as We Announce the Closure of AppleVis | AppleVis applevis.com/blog/end-era-mess…
Dear AppleVis Community, It is with deep sadness and a heavy heart that after careful consideration I have made the difficult decision to step down from my responsibilities with AppleVis.
This is such sad news. #AppleVis was more than a forum, it was a community. They provided some of the best summaries of Apple events such as WWDC and others, and the app directory was so useful to check whether apps were accessible or not before wasting time and money on them. Not to mention the impact the site has had on accessibility at Apple. Not many sites would have such active communication with the accessibility team at Apple of all companies. A huge thanks and congratulations to David and the team for building such a valuable resource and sticking with it through the years applevis.com/blog/end-era-mess…
Dear AppleVis Community, It is with deep sadness and a heavy heart that after careful consideration I have made the difficult decision to step down from my responsibilities with AppleVis.
It’s a very sad day. AppleVis has been a huge part of the #a11y community. Best of luck to David and the entire editorial team. Your work will be greatly missed.
The End of an Era: A Message From the Founder as We Announce the Closure of AppleVis | AppleVis applevis.com/blog/end-era-mess…
Dear AppleVis Community, It is with deep sadness and a heavy heart that after careful consideration I have made the difficult decision to step down from my responsibilities with AppleVis.
Dan Robinson Reviews the New Tecsun S-2200X Portable Receiver
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor and supporter, Dan Robinson, who shares the following review: Tecsun Delivers The S-2200X – New Life For A 16-Year-Old Cabinet Design by Dan Robinson Some months ago, I learned from Anon-co that Tecsun planned to release an update to the S-2000 receiver, which for the past 16 years also sold under other names such as the Grundig Satellit 750 and later the Eton Satellit…
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor and supporter, Dan Robinson, who shares the following review: Tecsun Delivers The S-2200X – New Life For A 16-Year-Old Cabinet Design by Dan Robinson Some mon…
Dear AppleVis Community, It is with deep sadness and a heavy heart that after careful consideration I have made the difficult decision to step down from my responsibilities with AppleVis.
@KE8UPE It's impossible to predict. Now that this announcement has gone viral in our community, it's possible that others may step up to take over. Again, it's impossible to predict, at this point.
I see athis again and again… Why release the software upgrade if you know it’s bad? I mean, this apology is OK, but could have been avoided. Isn’t what we have betas for? theverge.com/2024/7/25/2420620…
Dear AppleVis Community, It is with deep sadness and a heavy heart that after careful consideration I have made the difficult decision to step down from my responsibilities with AppleVis.
Run-DMC vs Jason Nevins' official music video for "It's Like That" now in HDListen to Run DMC: https://RunDMC.lnk.to/listenYDSubscribe to the official Run DM...
Dear AppleVis Community, It is with deep sadness and a heavy heart that after careful consideration I have made the difficult decision to step down from my responsibilities with AppleVis.
Wow, and turning off everyone's ability to comment on everything including the forum is a big F*** you to your users. You'll destroy it without letting another admin take over, really?
Like so many others, I got my first iPhone in 2011 and AppleVis was how I learned to use it. I ignored all the stupid negative comments and concentrated on the articles and podcasts. I will miss the site and can only hope that some group with the resources available will step forward to rescue this valuable resource.
A massive heartfelt thank you for everything you've all done and the time you've put into this project. I was a big user of your app directory, the apps I got from this have provided absolute years of fun. Your informative blog posts have made decisions for me as to whether to update my IOS. I hope someone from the team reads this.
Well, you will hear about new apps and new stuff, first, because upgrades are always posted on Macrumors, and such other sites, but also people find a lot of good apps and talk about them, so it'll be fine. there'll be other projects ran by people, it's not the end of the world, we have to be a bit more positive, like I said in a reply, every thing comes to an end, no matter the reasons, what we can do is move on and learn to adapt, to find other creative ways to do things, I believe this will encourage people to talk more amongst themselves and share ideas, and that, sometimes leads to good connections. We could be useful to each other.
Let's wish their staff all the best and many new opportunities, good moments and good memories. this is better, and I am sure each of us will remember the website for many more years to come.
Yeah, that's for sure. I just wanted to be a little bit positive, to wish everyone the best, and to ensure all of us that the world isn't ending. We would know if it is. But it's not this month or the next.
@tardis @ChocolatePie Stop trolling. You're linking two entirely different things, and you know it. People like you are the reason all the good things die. Wishing people well is of course in order, and thanking them for what they did, but there is no site currently that will tell us if anything works with VoiceOver, no directory, no way to find apps if you don't follow somebody that happens to use them, which is much harder without twitter, so, frankly, just go away!
@davetaylor2112 @tardis @ChocolatePie Absolutely. Sites like MacRumors aren't going to alert us about accessibility improvements and regressions with new updates. The type of fragmentation you're suggesting is a step back compared to having one reliable resource that contains this information.
I have seen accessibility announcements in these sites, maybe on Apple's themselves, but in any case, where's our wish for creativity and experimenting? that way, we can alert others, who in turn will alert others and so on.
I am not surprised there'll be such comments. I am neither trolling, nor harming anyone. I am simply wishing people the best from all my heart, and I appreciate their work. I am neither a troll, but you appear to be one hostile person, and to actually have the audacity to offend others. thank you for that, at least now I know what a troll is. someone who wishes people the best, tries to be positive and ensure others. At least it's not spamming. I thought it was spamming and hate, but you just changed my definition of it, for this, I am grateful. You learn something new each day. :)
You're invited to talk on Matrix. If you don't already have a client this link will help you pick one, and join the conversation. If you already have one, this link will help you join the conversation
* She should not have to experience this * It should be easier for admins at DAIR, and across the whole Fediverse, to prevent this
The content that drew the harassment was simul-posted on Mastodon, BlueSky, Twitter, and other social networks. Only Mastodon drew this level of racist replies. I need you all to believe Black folk when we say that Mastodon *is* the nazi bar.
#QT https://dair-community.social/@KimCrayton1/112854231460652234 UPDATE from my instances moderators
“None of these people are coming from known racist instances, it’s just wack-a-mole”
I chose this space because its owners are used to being targe…
I'm pleased to announce that the following reviews are now available from my Audio Reviews page: Grizzly Gulch Western Extravaganza and Chillingham by Bavisoft (originally produced for ACB Radio's Main Menu), Blindfold Bowling for iOS by Kid Friendly Software, and Homer On A Harley by Jim Kitchen. I hope you enjoy these as much as I did producing them. ksapergia.net/reviews/
@matt I'm assuming they're gone. Their website certainly is due to a compliance complaint filed with ICANN back in 2013 regarding Bavisoft's failing to respond to contact requests. I also heard from people who hadn't received their products among other things.
@andrew The game actually came out in 2004. I'll admit, I thought Grizzly Gulch was much better. In my opinion, Chillingham had no replay value, and the audio quality and acting weren't the greatest I've heard. What really made me mad about the game, however, was the section where you had to collect all the bugs for the professor, then do so again, and again, etc. Talk about tedious!
Ok I did wonder if it was later when I got Chillingham I think I got Shades of Doom in 2001. I think I completed Chillingham very quickly. I never played their first game.
This is definitely a blast from the past. Long before social media I found some of these reviews on audiogames.net or sometimes linked by the game creator. I know your Chillingham review got me un-stuck on at least one occasion.
* Grocery Genius: a feature-rich shopping list Android app with offline-first mode * Bazarnote: a simple note taking app keeping the necessary minimal information during bazaar
This is a repository of apps to be used with F-Droid. Applications in this repository are official binaries built by the original application developers, taken from their resp. repositories (mostly Github, GitLab, Codeberg).
so, here's an interesting question that I'd love some input on.
right now, the static site generator I use (getzola.org) has an optional "line numbers" mode for code blocks which is meant to display line numbers alongside a section of code. right now, this switches from outputting the code as a raw block of text to a table, where the line numbers are on the left and the lines are on the right.
my gut feeling is that the correct way to do this is to not use a table, and just find some other way of styling the code so that each line is prefixed with a number, and maybe you can toggle that on and off. but I don't actually know if this would be better for screen reader users or worse.
and this also occurred to me: I don't actually have any idea what the most common ways screen reader users interact with line numbers are. I personally would prefer to avoid adding extra javascript to this, so, that sets aside the option to do things like custom key combinations for revealing the line number, although I could do those instead and have some kind of fallback. although this wouldn't work nearly as well for mobile viewers, since that has much more limited support for key combinations. (maybe long press for line number?)
like, would it be obnoxious to just say the line number before every line, as if they were formatted as text? would it be helpful? I genuinely don't know since I don't develop this way, and would love to know what people think is best. this is a case where simply testing it out with a screen reader isn't enough: I know what the result would sound like, but I don't know if that's the result people would like to hear.
and it is worth saying, all of these options should ensure that you can just copy-paste the code into whatever editor you want and read it there. this is pretty doable with a table or any other method, and I'm not super worried about that aspect. mostly just what people who are browsing the site on their device would like as far as navigation goes.
@alcinnz The only thing I would really suggest that helps with reading code blocks with screen readers is wrapping them in a appropriately labeled region, which will make the SR announce you are entering a code block and also let you quickly skip past it. Line numbers just get in the way by adding extra speech before the actual code or requiring more keystrokes to navigate between each line. Someone else recently asked this relatively recently slvn.social/@silvenga/11275690…
Seirdy
in reply to Dr. Oblivious • • •Sensitive content
top image: very happy baby on a wooden rocker. the rocker is shaped like a U.S.S. Enterprise starship from Star Trek, leaning forwards.
Bottom image: scene of the Enterprise bridge during turbulence, tilted at a sharp angle. Everybody is stumbling and falling.
The baby is rocking the ship lol.